06/05/2009

Electric shock

Try, if you can, to ignore the vision of monstrosity that lurks at the top of this page. Cover it over with your hand. Tippex it out on your computer screen. Something like that.

Done it? Right. Now listen to just how futuristically excellent the Mission One EV sports bike sounds. Even if, like us, you harbour a deep suspension of anything with half the number of wheels it really should have, you’ll be impressed by this.

The Mission One EV is, as you might have guessed by the name, an all-electric sports bike. The world’s fastest, in fact. It’s powered by a liquid-cooled three-phase induction motor mated to a lithium ion battery pack.

Mission is promising a top speed of 150mph and a range of 150 miles – more than enough for any two-wheeled commute – with a recharge time of under two hours from a 240-volt power supply.

Better still, because it’s an electric motor, peak torque of 100lb ft is available from 0rpm – making it, we’d confidently predict – a proper weapon off the lights.

All of which might have been enough to make us overlook the EV’s $69,000 price tag… if it didn’t look like that. (Yes, you can scrape off the Tippex now.)

Why, Mission? Why do so much good work and then wrap it up in such a damn odd-looking package?

Or have we got it all wrong? Do we just need to adjust our eyes to… the future?